The Peugeot 9X8 Le Mans Racer Has Grown A Wing

Peugeot was one of a huge glut of manufacturers to announce a return to top-level endurance racing a few years ago with the World Endurance Championship’s new Hypercar regulations. We were more than a little shocked in 2022 when it revealed its challenger, the 9X8, which eschewed the usual giant rear wing seen on endurance prototypes for a design that relied much more on underbody aero.

Two years on from the original car’s reveal, and after a mixed season-and-a-half in the WEC, Peugeot has shown off an updated 9X8 for the remainder of the 2024 season, and it’s abandoned the radical wingless concept.

While the rear wing is the most obvious difference on the 2024-spec car, 90 per cent of the 9X8’s bodywork components have apparently been redesigned. Additionally, changes to the regulations for this year allow the use of staggered tyre sizes, so Peugeot has opted to fit 29cm wide rubber at the front and 34cm at the rear.

The powertrain setup, meanwhile, appears to be unchanged, still consisting of a 2.6-litre twin-turbocharged V6 paired with a front-mounted electric motor, and a seven-speed sequential gearbox.

Olivier Jansonnie, technical director of Peugeot Sport, said: “We made choices that are no longer the right ones now and this difference in performance was not sufficiently offset by the BOP (Balance of Performance) in 2023. The idea was, therefore, to go back to a car design that is similar [to] that of our rivals’ car design, so that it would then be given equivalent treatment by the BOP.”

Peugeot has also taken the opportunity to give its factory Team Peugeot TotalEnergies outfit a new livery, created by visual artist Demsky and featuring some rather abstract interpretations of the brand’s ‘lion head’ logo.

The 9X8 originally debuted mid-way through the 2022 WEC season at the 6 Hours of Monza. Despite a rocky beginning in terms of pace and reliability, it steadily became a competitor, leading part of the 24 Hours of Le Mans and taking third overall at Monza last year. At the old car’s final outing at this year’s season opener, the Qatar 1812km, the no. 93 car was on course for a second-place finish before running out of fuel on the penultimate lap, and ultimately being disqualified for a technical infraction.

Peugeot will be hoping its design changes can lead to victory at this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans, an event it’s won three times so far, the last coming in 2009. It’s set to be one of the most competitive editions ever, with 23 entries from 10 manufacturers in the Hypercar class alone. The updated 9X8 will make its competitive debut in April at the 6 Hours of Imola, ahead of the flagship race in June.